Fungible people

Johanna Rothman has just published a book about recruiting. You can find details here.

I feel like "throwing a stone in the wallow" (this is literally-translated French "jeter une pierre dans la mare" - I don't know what the English equivalent would be, maybe something like "hurling the shit toward the fan ...").

She says "I firmly believe that people are the foundation to any project's or technical organization's success". I used to believe the same, but I start wondering ...

It looks like every organization's purpose is to precisely free itself from the impact of its people's quality. To make people fungible. To define roles so precisely and so clearly that almost anyone would do.

There is a logic to this - the bigger the organization, the more difficult it is to keep the recruiting standards high. HR depts strive, but nature's laws work against them - on average, people are ... mediocre ... So roles and positions are better tuned so that even a mediocre person can fit.

Standards lead to a consistent quality level. We see this in every aspect of the life. A poor standard is better than no standard at all (VHS anyone ? Windows ? etc.) Why wouldn't the same reasoning apply in organizations ?

It's like un unspoken call: "CEOs of the world : Standardize your roles and positions !" So that even mediocre John Doe can fit them, any of them ! After all, this is what all this Business Process craze is all about. We do "business process modeling". This means abstracting the value that a business adds to little text boxes connected with arrows. If you think about it, we are also abstracting people while doing this. Nowhere in these BP models do you see the name of Mr "John A. Outstanding". Which implies that any "John D. Average" should do as well.